This report presents the procedures by which the Southern Forest Inventory and Analysis unit estimates forest growth from permanent horizontal point samples. Inventory data from the 1977-87 survey of Mississippi's north unit were used to demonstrate how trees on the horizontal point samples are classified into one of eight components of growth and, in turn, how...

A set of simple linear regression models for predicting diameter at breast height (dbh) from crown diamter and a set of similar models for predicting crown diamter from dbh were developed for four species groups in Harding County, TN. Data were obtained from 557 trees measured during hte 1989 USDA Southern Forest Experiment Station survey of the forest of Tennessee,...

An analysis of trees in Los Angeles, CA, reveals that this area has about 6 million trees with tree and shrub canopies that cover 24.9 percent of the city. The most common tree species are Italian cypress, scrub oak, laurel sumac, Mexican fan palm, and Indian laurel, Trees in Los Angeles currently store about 1.3 million tons of carbon (4.7 million tons CO2...

Current trends in the nation?s forest-sector research capacity were analyzed in terms of funding and number of scientists, and compared with prior data in the National Research Council?s 2002 report, National Capacity in Forestry Research. The total number of professors at institutions accredited by the Society of American Foresters, research scientists at the USDA...

In the 15 western states there are at least 28 million acres of forest that could benefit from some type of mechanical treatment to reduce hazardous fuel loading. It is estimated that about 60 percent of this area could be operationally accessible for treatment with a total biomass treatment volume of 345 million bone dry tons (bdt). Two-thirds of this forest area is...

Reported forest inventory statistics gathered by the USDA Forest Service, Southern Forest Experiment Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis (SOFIA) have been criticized because not all of the inventory volume reported is truly available for harvest. In response to this criticism, a procedure has been developed for assessing timber availability from reported inventory...

The Forest Inventory and Analysis unit of the Southern Forest Experiment Station is charged with conducting continuous inventories of the forest resources of the Midsouth.Techniques that offer innovative approaches for improving the efficiency of these inventories are in demand.One new approach for estimating the density of forest stands involves the derivation of a...

We estimated financial returns and wood production costs in 2008 for the primary timber plantation species. Excluding land costs, returns for exotic plantations in almost all of South America e Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, and Paraguay e were substantial. Eucalyptus species returns were generally greater than those for Pinus species in each...

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) restoration in the southeastern United States offers opportunities for carbon (C) sequestration. Ecosystem C stocks are not well understood in longleaf pine forests, which are typically of low density and maintained by prescribed fire. The objectives of this research were to develop allometric equations for...